Doncaster Council begin clampdown on the town centre’s litter louts

Doncaster Council have stepped up their fight against litterbugs, with more fines dished out in the first five months of 2016 than in the whole of the previous year.

The local authority has issued a total of 2,316 fixed penalty fines for dropping litter in the town centre since the beginning of this year.

This marks a massive increase, when compared to 2014/15 when 1,116 fines were issued by the council.

Commenting on the recent increase in the number of fines dished out Gill Gillies, Assistant Director of Environment said: “We have previously spoken about our determination to make Doncaster a cleaner and greener borough, and the number of fines issued for littering in the town centre and across the whole of the borough reflects that we’re making progress towards that goal.

“By using our resources intelligently, we can make sure officers are deployed in certain key areas, targeting littering hotspots and engaging with the community to enable them to take pride in where they live.

“We are doing well to clamp down on littering, but we need even more local people to join us in taking action against environmental crime by using litterbins and disposing of their rubbish responsibly.”

Up until this yearDoncaster Council had seen a consistent drop in the number of people being issued fixed penalty fines for littering in the town centre since 2010/11, when3,592peoplewere fined.

This dropped to 2,750 in 2011/12, to 2,255 in 2012/13, to 1,948 in 2013/14.

Doncaster’s former directly-elected mayor, Peter Davies, has previously claimed that Doncaster Council is not committed to tackling littering in the town centre.

Mr Davies has also said he thinks the council should be doing more to stop people from spitting and to reduce the number of homeless people in the town centre.

“I come into Doncaster town centre almost every day and you see fewer and fewer people around and I think it’s got to be to do with the state of the town centre. You can’t walk anywhere without being worried about what waste you might walk into.